“Sit down!” snarled Gloucester.  His lean and evil countenance was that of a tired devil.  The priest obeyed, wondering that so high an honor should be accorded him in the view of three great noblemen.  Then Gloucester said, in his sharp way:  “Edward, you know, as England knows, the King’s intention toward us three and our adherents.  It has come to our demolishment or his.  I confess a preference in the matter.  I have consulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking the crown into my own hands.  Edmund here does not want it, and my brother John is already achieving one in Spain.  Eh, in imagination I was already King of England, and I had dreamed—­Well! to-day the prosaic courier arrived.  Urban—­the Neapolitan swine!—­dares give me no assistance.  It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands.  And I had dreamed—­Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day and night, urging revolt.  As matters go, within a week or two, the three heads before you will be embellishing Temple Bar.  You, of course, they will only hang.”

“We must avoid England, then, my noble patron,” the priest considered.

Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table.  “By the Cross! we remain in England, you and I and all of us.  Others avoid.  The Pope and the Emperor will have none of me.  They plead for the Black Prince’s heir, for the legitimate heir.  Dompnedex! they shall have him!”

Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man insane.

“Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief at Sudbury,” said the Duke of York, “in order to give it to de Vere.  That is both absurd and monstrous and abominable.”

Openly Gloucester sneered.  “Listen!” he rapped out toward Maudelain; “when they were drawing up the Great Peace at Bretigny, it happened, as is notorious, that the Black Prince, my brother, wooed in this town the Demoiselle Alixe Riczi, whom in the outcome he abducted.  It is not so generally known, however, that, finding this sister of the Vicomte de Montbrison a girl of obdurate virtue, my brother had prefaced the action by marriage.”

“And what have I to do with all this?” said Edward Maudelain.

Gloucester retorted:  “More than you think.  For this Alixe was conveyed to Chertsey, here in England, where at the year’s end she died in childbirth.  A little before this time had Sir Thomas Holland seen his last day,—­the husband of that Joane of Kent whom throughout life my brother loved most marvellously.  The disposition of the late Queen-Mother is tolerably well known.  I make no comment save that to her moulding my brother was as so much wax.  In fine, the two lovers were presently married, and their son reigns to-day in England.  The abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cistercians at Chertsey, where some years ago I found you.”

He spoke with a stifled voice, wrenching forth each sentence; and now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table. “In extremis my brother did more than confess.  He signed,—­your Majesty,” said Gloucester.  The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a wizard whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied where his nails had cut the flesh.